Embodiments of the invention are related to an exposure apparatus, a mask plate, and an exposing method.
TFT-LCDs (Thin Film Transistor, Liquid Crystal Display) have been playing a dominant role in the current flat plate display market due to excellent characteristics, such as small capacity, low power consumption, free of radiation, and so on.
A TFT-LCD is formed by bonding an array substrate and a color filter substrate. On the array substrate, gate lines and data lines cross each other to define a plurality of pixel regions. In each pixel region, a pixel electrode and a thin film transistor are provided.
During the fabrication of the conductor lines on the array substrate of TFTs, a metal layer are firstly coated on the array substrate, then a photosensitive resist layer is coated on the metal layer, after that, the photosensitive resist layer is exposed by a mask plate, developed to form etching mask, and then removed after etching.
In the conventional exposure processes, in which there are different photosensitive resist layers to be exposed, a mask plate should be used in each exposing process to form different exposure pattern in different layers. As a result of such conventional exposure processes, the cost is high and the productivity is low.